What’s Love Got to Do With it ?

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Our publisher Alistair Speirs explores the role of love in our lives and finds that love isn’t just in the air, it is in everything and everybody and everywhere.

I believe that love is at the centre of everything. The driving force of our lives, the motivation for living and doing… well, everything.

Do you love your family? A pretty stupid question since the vast majority of people put the love of their family before everything else. And so they should. We bring our offspring into the world and care for them when they are small, keep them from harm (as much as we can), we nurture them and try to keep them on the right path until they decide it’s time to make their own way in the world. Throughout that time, our love for them never falters. Of course there are some families that don’t have harmonious relationships. Sometimes we may fight, but if we are threatened, in any kind of danger, our love for our family usually wins through and we would do anything to protect them… even if we are still not speaking!

What about your partner in life? Do you love your spouse, your boyfriend, your girlfriend? I hope so, but this is a tough love to keep going. The world is full of divorced or separated people who haven’t made it long term. It doesn’t mean there was no love between them, but it may just not have been enough to sustain a life together. If you love your partner you have to work at the relationship to keep it fresh. You have to compromise when you don’t want to. You have to bite your tongue when you know that what you are going to say will hurt them. It’s hard, but if you give up you lose something very special. I am very lucky to have been married for nearly 30 years and I have quite a few friends who have made it there too and beyond. It makes life very rewarding.

Do you love nature? Are you not thrilled by a magnificent sunrise or sunset, overawed by beautiful landscapes, by the majesty of the world when it is untouched by man? The magnificence of vast mountain ranges, the thrill of the unknown in the underwater world, the feeling of insignificance in a vast forest, are all expressions of love, and respect, for our amazing world.

Don’t you just love food? There are some who just eat to live, only consuming food as fuel, not caring what it tastes or looks like. But many of us live to eat, savoring every morsel, indulging ourselves with beautifully prepared menus, matching dishes with fine wines and taking our time to enjoy the whole culinary experience.

What about your job? Do you love what you do? I hope so, but perhaps that’s too much to ask of every job, since some jobs are challenging, others repetitive and boring. But whatever we do, we should at least put some love into it, do it wholeheartedly and make the most of our talents and skills. If if you do not love your career, think about changing it. What is the point of being bored or upset for the majority of each day? Take the plunge and find an occupation that you love and go for it! I did and still love what I do - including writing this short article!

What about your relationship with God or our creator? Do you love him? Or indeed even believe in him ? He is after all at the centre of all that we have discussed above. He is the reason we exist, that we have families, that we have this world, that we work each day. If you don’t believe, it is of course up to you, but I do and as a Christian I believe that He loves us too, with a love that is beyond our comprehension and our ability to reciprocate. As it says in the Bible “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” ( John 3.16 )

Now that is Love with a capital L. I hope you will experience this one day too.

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